Memoirs on the Coleoptera/Volume 1/New Species of the Staphylinid Tribe Myrmedoniini
I—NEW SPECIES OF THE STAPHYLINID TRIBE MYRMEDONIINI.
The Myrmedoniini comprise by far the greater part of the large subfamily Aleocharinæ, and present a rather discouraging problem to the systematist through sheer force of numbers. In the European fauna probably a large proportion of the existing species have been described, though in an inconveniently scattered literature, so that it is difficult to identify many of the forms, especially as the types are widely diffused and in some instances probably lost. In the most recent European catalogue the greater part of those described are announced as synonyms of a few more accentuated species, possibly to thereby cut the Gordian knot of uncertainty of identification as much as anything, for many of these so-called synonyms are not truly such by any means. I do not think that the names printed in that catalogue under Acrotona fungi, for example, are synonyms in many instances, for I have received under this name from various European authorities at least four unequivocally distinct though generically related species.
Some describers have not taken pains to study their material with the care exercised by such investigators as Thomson, Kraatz and Rey, whose genera are nearly all valid as such, and the absence of information concerning the intermesocoxal sternal pieces and other important structural characters, renders it impossible to identify, with very few exceptions, the species published by Mäklin, Mannerheim, Melsheimer, Say, Erichson and many of those of Bernhauer, more particularly when founded upon short comparative statements concerning certain European species, positively authentic examples of which it is almost impossible for American students to obtain. As a result, even when the species of those authors are described as pertaining to special genera or subgenera, there are frequent mistakes in the assignments, rendering their work to some extent misleading and untrustworthy. This comes about in great degree from the method of mounting pursued by most of the European collectors of the smaller Coleoptera, the entire under surface being glued to cards, so that the most important characters are not observable, except through a good deal of mechanical labor and risk of injury or destruction of the types. Most remarkable systematic characters have in this way remained unappreciated, if not virtually unknown to them in various sections of the Coleoptera, especially in such genera as Cardiola and in Anthicus and related genera. The three investigators above mentioned are among the notable exceptions to this rule however.
During the past twenty-five years the writer has been steadily accumulating as much material as possible in the Aleocharinæ, with a view to ultimately describing and classifying the species, but pressure of other matters has thus far left too little time for any serious attempt in that direction. It is considered desirable, however, to describe this material now, so far as may be convenient and in a less systematic way, in order that the types may remain in this country for the benefit of coming students of our Staphylinidæ. The species were all described as new, and, in vast majority, are actually in this category without question; but in all cases where it has been possible to identify them with species previously described, I have simply substituted the name given by the previous author and allowed the description to remain. Although the species here described in the group Athetæ may seem perhaps to be inordinate in number, it can be said with great confidence that they represent only a fraction of the seemingly unending horde occurring in North America, where the Staphylinid fauna is far richer than in Europe; so the likelihood of having made any considerable number of synonyms of species previously described is, from every point of view, minute or negligible.